Friend of Boston Marathon bomber to serve sentence for lying to authorities

BOSTON -- A college friend of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has lost his bid to have his conviction for lying to authorities dismissed.

Robel Phillipos had asked the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn his conviction, saying statements he made to FBI investigators after the April 2013 bombing were coerced. He said on appeal that the trial judge made a mistake by not scheduling a hearing to determine whether to exclude Phillipos' written statements.

The appeals court said the trial judge hadn't erred.

Phillipos at first told authorities that he did not go to Tsarnaev's dorm room at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth after the bombings but later said he had lied.

He was sentenced to three years in prison and is scheduled to be released in February 2018.